The agenda of external actors often includes a number of objectives that do not necessarily and automatically go together. Fostering security and stability in semi-authoritarian regimes collides with policies aimed at the support of processes of democratization prone to conflict and destabilization. Meanwhile, the promotion of national self-determination and political empowerment might lead to forms of democracy, partially incompatible with liberal understandings. These conflicting objectives are often problematized as challenges to the effectiveness of international democracy promotion. This book presents systematic research about their emergence and effects. The contributing authors investigate (post-) conflict societies, developing countries, and authoritarian regimes in Southeast Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. They identify the socio-economic and political conditions in the recipient country, the interaction between international and local actors, and the capacity of international and local actors as relevant for explaining the emergence of conflicting objectives. And they empirically show that faced with conflicting objectives donors either use a 'wait and see'-approach (i.e. not to act to overcome such conflicts), they prioritize security, state-building and development over democracy, or they compromise democracy promotion with other goals. However, convincing strategies for dealing with such conflicts still need to be devised. This book was published as a special issue of Democratization.

The agenda of external actors often includes a number of objectives that do not necessarily and automatically go together. Fostering security and stability in semi-authoritarian regimes collides with policies aimed at the support of processes of democratization prone to conflict and destabilization. Meanwhile, the promotion of national self-determination and political empowerment might lead to forms of democracy, partially incompatible with liberal understandings. These conflicting objectives are often problematized as challenges to the effectiveness of international democracy promotion. This book presents systematic research about their emergence and effects. The contributing authors investigate (post-) conflict societies, developing countries, and authoritarian regimes in Southeast Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. They identify the socio-economic and political conditions in the recipient country, the interaction between international and local actors, and the capacity of international and local actors as relevant for explaining the emergence of conflicting objectives. And they empirically show that faced with conflicting objectives donors either use a 'wait and see'-approach (i.e. not to act to overcome such conflicts), they prioritize security, state-building and development over democracy, or they compromise democracy promotion with other goals. However, convincing strategies for dealing with such conflicts still need to be devised. This book was published as a special issue of Democratization.

Religion und Politik"wurde spatestens mit den jungsten Revolutionen im arabischen Raum ein zentrales Thema fur die Demokratisierungsforschung. Wie beeinflussen religiose Akteure Demokratisierung? Welche Faktoren bedingen ihre Einflussnahme? Der vorliegende Band bietet erste Antworten auf diese Fragen. Hierfur wirdein theoretisch-konzeptionelles Analyseraster zur Untersuchung der Rolle religioser Akteure im Regimewandel entwickelt. In keiner der behandelten jungen mehrheitlich christlichen, christlich-orthodoxen oder muslimischen Demokratien haben religiose Akteure das Ergebnis des jeweiligen Transformationsprozesses bestimmt. Sie haben durch ihre politische und gesellschaftliche Einflussnahme aber zu Prozessen der Erosion autoritarer Herrschaft und zur Demokratisierung beigetragen. Die Moglichkeiten religioser Akteure auf Demokratisierung einzuwirken, hangen vor allemvon ihrer Organisationsform und der formalrechtlichen sowie de facto Stellung gegenuber dem politischen Regime ab. Ihre Ziele, Mittel und die politische Tragweite ihrer vertretenen Theologien sind vornehmlich davon bedingt, wie viel Unabhangigkeit sie vom Staat geniessen. "